New house building: April 2021 to March 2022

Main points

• During 2021-22, the number of new dwellings started increased by 31% to 5,659 dwellings compared to 4,314 dwellings the previous year.
• The number of new dwellings completed in 2021-22 was 5,273 and was up 14% on the previous year.
• A total of 4,391 new dwellings were completed by the private sector accounting for 82% of all completions during 2021-22.
• A total of 882 social sector dwellings were completed during 2021-22. Of these, 92% (810 dwellings) were completed by RSLs and the remaining 8% (72 dwellings) were completed by local authorities (or their subsidiaries).
• Over a third (38%) of all new dwellings completed in Wales during 2021-22 were 3 bedroom properties.

Note

Whilst the number of starts and completions in 2021-22 were higher than those in 2020-2021, the numbers for both years are lower than prior years and this is likely to be due to the circumstances that applied in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both starts and completions will be influenced by quarterly fluctuations including the timing of starts and completions on large sites in some authorities and seasonal factors such as holidays and weather. These statistics are not seasonally adjusted.

The information is based on the reports of local authority building inspectors and the National House Building Council (NHBC), a private approved inspector. It does not include information from other private approved inspectors.

It is sometimes difficult for building control officers who record the data to identify the intended final tenure of the property (the basis for the tenure information). This may lead to an under-count of social sector new house building and an over-count for the private sector. Therefore, the tenure data should be treated with caution.

We also publish separate statistics on affordable housing provision. The figures cover all additional affordable housing units, whether through new build, purchase, acquisition, leasing or conversion of existing dwellings.